Friday, March 27, 2009

Not much today

The bands have been terrible here. We are finally getting some rain activity, and when the storms are present in the Atlantic or the Caribbean I suffer greatly, but its a fate I suffer gladly since when they are absent this QTH is hotrnapistol.

It has been tremendously dry and that leads to wild fire conditions around here, so even though it messes up my radio time, it gives me more comfort that the state won't burn down. I had burned spots in my lawn, and a pumper truck parked next to my house in '98 so this is something I take very seriously.

I have all the surface mount done on the softrock without any lost little bits or solder bridges. If you choose to do this I suggest a flux pen and some of the .015 silver solder from Radio shack. Not much is worth anything at RS anymore but this stuff is good stuff. I haven't built something like this for a while so this is a lot of fun to do. There are a lot of building options where you can do a bunch of testing and step by step as you go, but I am doing the "terse" method where you just stuff the board and then test. I hate winding toroids so that will be the only downer of the deal. I'm exactly at this stage

Call to arms

Hear Ye Hear Ye

If you're interested in writing something interesting for this blog regarding your SDR experience let me know. I would like to include things like how your SDR contest station is set up, or your VHF station that uses SDR as the system center, feats of weak signal work or how well the SDR works in various challenging situations. If you are a foreign ham and would like to comment on the growth of SDR in your particular part of the world. Bring it on!

I reserve the right to publish or not, but I'm pretty open to documenting a wide variety of honest experiences from users, for readers to explore. The understanding of SDR in our hobby is so nascent, that I want the reader to be able to see the value of SDR through the eyes of YOUR experience and enthusiasm.